Together with Ortì and Terreti it forms the 11th district of the municipality of Reggio Calabria.

It is a small town close to the Aspromonte mountains, and is 500 metres (1,600 ft) above sea level, at the foot of Mount Marrapà and on the left bank of the river Gallico.

The town is inhabited by the Griko people who formerly spoke their ancestral Calabrian Greek dialect.

In 1811, after the administrative distributions the Kingdom of Naples commissioned by Joachim Murat, Podargoni became independent, a status he held until 1927 when it was incorporated in Greater Reggio.

A few years ago Podargoni was declared a protected medieval village of particular historical and environmental significance, but its architectural salvage program, which began in the 1990s, is stagnating.